Last week, I assigned myself a quick task. Recently, I’ve been filling in as team lead while my manager is on maternity leave, and my coding days feel like a distant memory, replaced by meetings and Jira. So, after a decade of coding, I found myself staring at a compiler error that looked like ancient Aramaic. My instant thought wasn't to check the documentation or simply ask my team, it was: "Could ChatGPT just fix it for me?"

At that moment, reaching for AI to search for the answer felt obvious. It was an automatic reaction since these tools are powerful, accessible, and everywhere. However, here’s the problem: until just 3 years ago, none of us thought there would be AI we could talk to as naturally as a person. Today, it feels almost like an extension of ourselves, like one of our organs. But behind the convenience lies a massive, growing cost: the energy required to train and run them, something most of us, myself included, rarely stop to think about.

In this talk, I hope you’ll walk away with a new awareness of both the positive and negative impacts AI has on our environment. Just like we learned with plastic bags, cars, and countless other innovations, every technology brings both immense benefits and real challenges. Our responsibility is to see the whole picture, ask the right questions, and choose how to use these tools in a balanced way. AI is here to stay - the real question is not if we use it, but how we do so in a way that keeps both our future and our planet safe.